


Communion

by fatal_drum



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Gore, M/M, Monsters in love, Non-Consensual Body Modification, The Flesh - Freeform, Vivisection, background Peter Lukas/Elias Bouchard, bad things happen to everyone but Jon and Martin, past Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 19:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatal_drum/pseuds/fatal_drum
Summary: Whatever force granted his escape, Martin knew one thing: he was determined never to be alone again. The key is in the flesh, he decided. People weren’t meant to be separated by skin. If two people were made one, all the misunderstandings, all the petty jealousies and deceits, would go away. They could finally be whole.





	Communion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwoDrunkenCelestials](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoDrunkenCelestials/gifts).

> Based on a prompt from [@twodrunkencelestials](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoDrunkenCelestials/pseuds/TwoDrunkenCelestials), with input from [@hirielfwraith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HirilElfwraith). Thank you so much for this lovely idea!
> 
> As ever, many thanks to [@cuttooth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth) for their marvelous job as a beta! <3 Any mistakes are my own.

Jon is beautiful when he’s working. He’s beautiful always, really, but the work brings out the things Martin loves best: the curiosity in his eyes, the slight frown as he figures out how the pieces go together, heedless of the greying strands falling over his face. Jon is best at cutting, taking, _ rending.  _ He knows the best places to incise, and Martin knows how they fit together. 

It’s hard to imagine a time when they weren’t together. Martin hates thinking of it. Of the years he’d watched his mother decline, fat and muscle whittled away from the bones, leaving only a bitter skeleton with rice-paper skin. How he’d wished he could give her some of his health, his life, his  _ meat,  _ if it would keep her with him. But Martin was weak back then. He hadn’t yet learned the secrets of the Flesh. He hadn’t learned how to share.

Not long after her death, he lied his way into a job as a secretary for a man who claimed to work in antiquities. His pale eyes had watched Martin with naked greed when they first met. The idea of being  _ wanted  _ was so new to Martin, so tantalizing, that he’d mistaken it for love. 

It was an easy mistake to make. Hunger of one sort isn’t so different from another; the urge to take, to consume, comes in many forms. Martin craved affection, validation; Peter gave him just enough of those things to make Martin need him. Martin was once naive enough to think sex was the closest one could get to another human being, but Peter knew how to fill his body and empty his heart, until he grew tired enough to discard the empty shell. 

Martin isn’t sure how he escaped Peter’s patron. He likes to think it was the lure of his true calling, or even the lure of his undiscovered mate still wandering the streets by himself—an unconscious pull between his heart and Jon’s, bringing them together as they were destined to be. 

Whatever force granted his escape, Martin knew one thing: he was determined never to be alone again. The key is in the flesh, he decided. People weren’t meant to be separated by skin. If two people were made one, all the misunderstandings, all the petty jealousies and deceits, would go away. They could finally be whole. 

Of course, Martin wasn’t ready to try it right away. Not on himself; he didn’t have the right partner. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t help others. Like the Stoker brothers, who had grown distant and let envy sour their relationship. They had been beautiful, with the same golden skin and devastating smiles. Martin joined them chest to chest, so each could see his beauty reflected in the other. 

They hadn’t thanked him for it, but Martin didn’t need thanks. His work is a labor of love. 

It’s how he met Jon. 

He’d found himself on the wrong end of the law—a stupid mistake, and one that got him on Detective Tonner’s radar. The scent of the Hunt rose from her pores, a smell of gunpowder and blood. She fancied herself human, but she took too much satisfaction from the kill. He knew from the gleam of anticipation he saw in her eyes—the same look Peter Lukas had fixed on him all those years ago. Only when she consumed him, it would be more...permanent. 

She under-estimated him. Most people do. She saw his spectacles and his soft body and decided she could afford to toy with him. He still has the scars, thick lines from a serrated blade. She’d taken her time cutting him, delighting in his pained whimpers as she carved him to her liking. Until a noise caught her attention, and she turned away at just the wrong moment. 

It was just long enough for him to shove her hand away until it made contact with her chest. He squeezed tight, and the layers of skin parted, joining phalanges to sternebrae, with a warped bridge of dermis in between. She tried to pull her hand away, but it was no use. Her scream of rage nearly deafened him. 

He wasted no time shoving her off him, incapacitating her one limb at a time. She snarled and snapped at him, but it was already far too late. He was just contemplating what to do with her when a voice cut through. 

“Fascinating.” 

Martin’s heart leapt into his throat; he turned to face the stranger, and was instantly enthralled. 

The speaker was a man, a bit older than Martin if the grey in his hair was anything to go by, though his face was unlined, with high cheekbones and and an aquiline nose. His eyes were fixed on Martin with a single-minded intensity that made his mouth go dry. The man stepped closer, until he was standing over Martin. 

“I usually prefer taking them apart. I never thought of putting them back together.”

“You’re like me,” Martin said. 

The man crouched down until he was staring directly into Martin’s face. 

“I think so,” he said, wiping something warm and wet from Martin’s cheek. “Shall we find out?”

Martin preferred not to take lives, but letting Detective Tonner live would have put them both at risk. He watched, fascinated, as Jon pried her apart, piece by piece. Some he kept for himself, like the eyes. Tonner’s were a striking golden brown. Jon placed them on either side of his chest, then allowed the skin to blink closed. He sighed contentedly, as if he’d just eaten a four course meal. As Martin watched, more eyes opened in Jon’s skin, in a multitude of colors, all winking in and out of sight. 

“They’re beautiful,” Martin said, reaching out to touch before he knew what he was doing. 

Jon gasped when Martin’s fingertips brushed the skin where Tonner’s left eye had gone. 

“D-do you think so?” Jon asked shyly. 

“Yes,” Martin breathed. 

That night was the first night they shared flesh, Jon opening Martin’s skin and Martin sealing them together. They took turns touching one another, caressing each other from the inside, hungry fingers stroking slick viscera and striated muscle. It was more intimate than sex could ever be, a form of lovemaking just for them. Jon took Martin’s beating heart in his hands and brought it to his lips, sending a shiver through his whole body. Afterwards, he replaced it with his own. It still beats inside Martin’s chest, a constant reminder of their connection. 

Martin wonders what will happen when one of them dies. Will his heart stop beating in the other’s chest? Will they go down together? 

He hopes so. 

Right now, Jon is asking him to open a man’s rib cage, to curve the bones back in a smooth arc. The man makes a choked noise as Martin does it, trying to hide his discomfort even now. He’s a proud man. 

“Jon, _ please—”  _ he cries, voice tinged with hysteria.

“Shut up, Elias,” Jon snaps. “Or I’ll take your tongue next.”

Jon won’t tell Martin what Elias did to him, but it certainly left a mark. Not on his body, where Martin could fix it, tenderly knitting broken skin until it was perfect and whole. No, Elias’s mark is more subtle, evident only in the wary, hunted look Jon wears sometimes. 

Martin doesn’t press him for an answer; he knows the true secrets are written under Jon’s skin, and are already his. They’ve melded together and reshaped themselves so many times; their bodies keep nothing from each other. At night, they sleep pressed together, a tangle of limbs and viscera. Parting each morning is painful. Martin never wants to surrender the embrace of Jon’s body. But to take the leap, permanently? To become one mind, one heart, one flesh? They need to know more before they’re ready. Their union must be  _ perfect.  _

Elias and his lover are excellent practice. Somehow it hadn’t shocked Martin to realize their tormentors were linked, that their pain springs forth from a mutual source. That vengeance for one would satisfy them both. 

Martin took Peter’s tongue first. It was always the most dangerous part of him, and Martin will take no chances with it. He stares up at Martin with wide and fearful eyes, and it’s the best meal Martin’s ever had, filling him to the brim with sparkling energy—only that’s not quite right. Every time he thinks he’s full, he discovers he has room for more of Peter’s pain and fear. 

“Will you take his eyes, love?” Martin asks. 

“Yes,” Jon says. “But I won’t keep them. I won’t keep  _ any _ of him.”

Elias chuckles darkly. “I’m afraid it’s too late—”

He doesn’t finish; Martin slaps him hard, putting the force of his gift behind it, and it warps Elias’s perfect cheekbones as if they were made of soft clay. He realizes belatedly that Jon didn’t authorize this. He spares him a glance, ready to correct the change, but Jon’s gaze holds nothing but love. 

“This is better than you deserve,” Martin tells Elias. “He won’t leave you again. You never have to be alone.” 

Peter makes a wet, choked sound that makes Martin shiver pleasurably—probably some weak protest, like the ones Martin made a lifetime ago, alone and frightened in Peter’s domain. He and Jon have speculated on what the change will do to Peter, whether he’ll be forced to relinquish his power or go mad in the attempt. Whatever happens, Martin hopes it hurts. 

“Now hold still,” Jon says, bracing his hand on Elias’s ruined cheek. 

“Or don’t,” Martin adds cheerfully. “If you’d like to make this  _ much  _ harder on yourself.”

Jon turns to smile at Martin, and his heart— _ Jon’s _ heart—skips a beat in his chest. For a moment, Martin is completely overwhelmed by the force of his affection. He presses himself against Jon’s back, runs gentle fingers through the skin of his abdomen, stroking the slick membranes below. It’s almost,  _ almost  _ enough. 

Elias screams as Jon resumes his work, and Martin smiles against Jon’s neck. 


End file.
